A tent panel (qanat), India, 19th century

The qanat hanging was very important for the encampments of the Mughals, employed as moveable screens in both the tents of hunting parties and various palaces used during tours of inspection. They were composed of a repeating row of similar or identical panels which usually incorporated a niche, and were to be cut by the user according to the dimensions of the screen it was intended to cover. 

The pattern of a flowering shrub encompassed by a cusped arch was almost certainly influenced by sixteenth century Safavid prototypes. It entered the Mughal decorative vocabulary in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, where it became ubiquitous and remained popular in commercial textiles into the late nineteenth century.

The present panel retains eighteen niches, each block printed with alternating floral shrubs, clearly derived from its Mughal predecessors (see examples sold in these rooms, 10 June 2020, lot 143 and 24 October 2007, lot 164). Above the floral niches is a frieze with repeated hunting scenes comprising armed figures, elephant riders, tigers and other animals. A closely comparable panel of three niches with an almost identical hunting scene is in the Penn Museum (inv. no.29-96-11.2).